CHAPTER 11
Social Cognition
GALEN V. BODENHAUSEN, C. NEIL MACRAE, AND KURT HUGENBERG
257MENTAL REPRESENTATION: STRUCTURE
AND PROCESS 259
Associative Network Models 260
Schemas 262
Exemplars 264
Distributed Memory Models 265
AUTOMATIC AND CONTROLLED PROCESSES
IN SOCIAL COGNITION 265
Automatic Social Cognition 266
Controlled Social Cognition 268
SOCIAL COGNITION IN CONTEXT: MOTIVATIONAL
AND AFFECTIVE INFLUENCES 271
Epistemic Motivation 272
Defensive Motivation 273
Social-Adjustive Motivation 276
Affective States 276
CONCLUSION 277
REFERENCES 277Sociality is a hallmark of human functioning. Indeed, the
survival and success of our evolutionary ancestors depended
on their ability to form coordinated bands of interdependent
actors (e.g., Leakey, 1978). The benefits of group living al-
lowed a band to succeed where an individual might fail (e.g.,
Axelrod & Hamilton, 1981). Although our species has come
a long way from the harsh and precarious conditions present
during early hominid evolution, human beings continue to be
utterly dependent on one another for their survival and well-
being. It is therefore quite reasonable to assume that human
cognitive and motivational tendencies were shaped by the
demands of group living (e.g., Brewer, 1997; Seyfarth &
Cheney, 1994). Some have claimed that our capacities for
reasoning and our other higher mental functions may owe
their very existence to the constraints imposed by sociality on
human survival and reproductive success (Byrne, 2000). Our
most fundamental concerns depend crucially on our ability to
understand the characteristics, motivations, and intentions of
others; according to Cummins (1998, p. 37), “the evolution of
mind emerges as a strategic arms race in which the weaponry
is ever-increasing mental capacity to represent and manipu-
late internal representations of the minds of others.” This ca-
pacity to understand the minds of others is so central to
successful human functioning that when it is compromised,
the consequences are often devastating (e.g., Baron-Cohen,
1995). How the mind understands the social world within
which it functions is therefore a matter of central importance
in psychology. It is this question that is at the center of theory
and research on social cognition.
Social cognitionrefers to the cognitive structures and
processes that shape our understanding of social situations
and that mediate our behavioral reactions to them. At its core,
the fundamental assumption of social cognition research is
the idea that internal mental representations of other persons
and of social situations play a key causal role in shaping be-
havior. The central task of social cognition research is thus to
provide a specification of the nature of these mental struc-
tures and the processes that operate on them. A simple,
generic depiction of the theoretical space within which social
cognition researchers work is provided in Figure 11.1. Stated
at the most general level, a social cognition analysis incorpo-
rates a consideration of (a) the informational cues that are
currently experienced in the social environment; (b) mental
representations that are constructed on the basis of current or
previous experience; (c) the ways these representations are
manipulated and the processes through which they influence
other aspects of attention and cognition; and (d) the deci-
sions, judgments, intentions, and behaviors that result from
the application of these processes. The distinction between
representation and process is more a matter of convenience
than it is a reflection of a clear theoretical dissociation be-
tween considerations of mental structure and mental process.